Building on the workshop on green finance and agriculture co-organized with the Improving Capacity Building in Rural Finance Partnership (CABFIN) and the Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association in late May, SAFIN partners and the Secretariat continued to explore several issues at the intersection of “green” and “SME” in agri-food finance in the past months. These included effective partnership development and the role of financial and value chain aggregation in generating pipeline and de-risking green transactions in this market segment.
Photo: IFAD/Ibrahima Kebe Diallo
In July, several partners and the SAFIN Senior Coordinator participated in the first working meeting of a global network of food system investors and financial partners, which resulted in the launch of the Good Food Finance Network at the UN Food Systems Summit in late September. SAFIN’s participation contributed to the identification of innovative financial products and services for SMEs as one key part of the agenda of a “green” financial transition in the sector, opening up new collaboration opportunities within and beyond the network after the Summit. Later in September, the Senior Coordinator spoke in a session on innovations in agricultural finance to catalyse sustainable transitions for smallholders at the World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, focusing on opportunities and challenges around aggregation as an enabler of both financial scale and inclusive impact.
On 02 September, SAFIN hosted a webinar on partnerships in green finance initiatives for agri-SMEs. During the session, Kisa Mfafila of the International Fund for Agricultural Development interviewed Arindom Datta of Rabobank and Anil Kumar of Samunnati about their institutions’ long-lasting partnership in the green finance space in India. The discussion highlighted how important it is for financial institutions that want to make an impact in this space to find partners that are committed. to learning and growing together in the long-term.
